New Zealand Visa Application Fees Increasing

New Zealand visa application fee increasing per 5 November 2018

The visa application fee is what Immigration New Zealand charges to process your visa application. You pay this when you submit your visa application online. Or, if you apply on paper, the most common way to pay is to provide your credit card details.

The amount you pay is made up of 2 components: the visa application fee itself and a levy, but the total amount is generally called “fee” The fee covers the cost to provide immigration services by the government. This includes processing applications but also includes services at the border, compliance (dealing with people who breach visa conditions) and refugees. The last time the fees went up was a couple of years ago.

Overview of fee changes

This time the increase for some visa types is quite significant. Some fees increase by more than 60%. The major fee hikes are for work visas. Both the fee and the levy increase a lot. For resident visas, the fee decreases slightly but the levy increases somewhat. The total fee increase for different types of resident visa applications sits between 10% and 20%.

Students are best off. The visa application fee increase is modest with only 2%.

Another change is the removal of the discount that applied to online applications. Up to 5 November, you pay NZD 298 if you apply online for an Essential Skills work visa. You pay NZD 318 if you submit the same application on paper. From 5 November 2018 onward you pay the same fee for both an online application and a paper application (if you apply within New Zealand).

New visa application fee

For some of the most common visa, the old and the new visa application fee are listed below. The amount is the total amount payable and includes the fee component and the levy component.

Type of visa

Fee per 5 November 2018 (in NZD)

Current fee (in NZD)

Change

Visitor visa

211

165

28%

Student visa

275

270

2%

Work visa -Essential Skills

495

298

+66%

Work visa – partner of an NZ citizen/resident

635

393

62%

Work visa – partner of a work or student visa holder

495

298

+66%

Work visa – Work to residence

635

393

+62%

Working Holiday Visa

245

208

+18%

Resident visa – Skilled Migrant Category

2,710

2,470

+10%

Resident visa – Expression of Interest

530

530

N/A

Resident visa – partner of NZ citizen/resident

1,480

1,250

+18%

Resident visa – Residence from work

1,800

1,550

+16%

* Fees listed are for people applying from within NZ and compared to current online application fees (where applicable)

** Amounts listed include the fee and the levy

2 Comments

rosa
on October 26, 2018 at 2:00 pm

can i still sponser someone if my passport is expire for more than three years